Who Killed the Electric Car?

[VehiGAZ]

$80k/vehicle including development costs? I don't think so... I just got my brand-spanking-new Car & Driver in the mail today, and the first editorial happens to address this movie (how timely). In the article, the editor pegged the cost of each EV at around $1,000,000 including development costs. This from a guy that has GM's engineering staff on speed-dial. That's a far cry from $80k.

Secondly, the speculation that the lease cost of the EV could be raised to make it a sustainable product is just nonsense, because there was no buy-out option on the 3-4 year lease (since they would need a total battery replacement to go longer, adding thousands to the cost of maintenance) so the "lease cost" is meaningless - all that matters is the monthly vig, and that was a paltry $300-$400 a month. Even on the high side of each of these estimates, that means GM was able to recoup about $19,200 of that million bucks it spent to produce each one. (substitute the $80k figure, and it's still a horrendous money loser) So GM threw millions and millions of dollars (some of which came from our taxes) down the drain to appease the California Air Resources Board for a couple of years before they backpedaled their impossible sell-an-EV-if-you-want-to-sell-anything-in-Cali mandate. And GM is the enemy?

There was another great little factoid about the EV-1 in that C/D editorial... they asked the engineers who developed it what the range would be on a winter day with cold batteries, using the heater and defroster. The answer? 12 miles. Yeah, what a livable, practical means of transportation...

And I don't buy the contention that it makes sense for all of us to replace one of our cars with an EV which we can recharge using our home renewable energy supply. Again, expending tons of resources to replace something that will tax other resources marginally less doesn't make any sense on a macroeconomic scale. Hell, I don't think it makes any sense even on a microeconomic scale - I would have to spend tens of thousands to replace a perfectly good car with an EV replacement, spends thousands and thousands of dollars building a wind turbine or set of photovoltaic cells in my backyard ("What a lovely addition!"), all to move my pollution production to a coal-fired power plant?! Besides, those solar panels and wind turbines don't power a special green outlet out back behind the house - they are metered and feed the electricity back into the GRID while you get a credit against youe electric bill.

If you want to expend resources to reduce pollution, there are a lot of cheaper and more effective ways to do it than that!

[JAFO]

If you want to expend resources to reduce pollution, there are a lot of cheaper and more effective ways to do it than that!

So if there are cheaper and more effective ways to reduce pollution, why did California choose to go with the EV? Are you saying that they are intentionally ignoring other currently available options, as if they like the fact that they have the highest air pollution?

I guess one way to cut air pollution in half would be to pass a law that said you can only drive every other day of the week. That should cut air pollution in half.

Or if people didn't like being told when or where they can or can't drive maybe add a $3 per gallon gas tax. Then keep rasing the tax until the air pollution has lowered to acceptable (heathly) levels.

Either of these two situations wouldn't cost the government any money and the second may actually turn a profit.

Banning use of vehicles because of pollution or environmental abuse has happened before. Example, 2 cycle personal water craft have been banned by California and other states. ATVs have been banned from some public lands. Motorized vehicles have been banned from most of the Oregon coast line's beaches. If we do not take responsibility for our own environmental abuse then eventually, gradually, our freedoms will be taken away from us.

[WyrreJ]

$80k/vehicle including development costs? I don't think so... I just got my brand-spanking-new Car & Driver in the mail today, and the first editorial happens to address this movie (how timely). In the article, the editor pegged the cost of each EV at around $1,000,000 including development costs. This from a guy that has GM's engineering staff on speed-dial. That's a far cry from $80k.

You are missing the $1B that we, the taxpayer paid for. Subtract that, and you are down to $80K for the remaining R&D plus manufacturing.

Furthemore, the ~$1.2B that GM estimated the total cost at (before the pork) is not out of line with what it costs GM to do a face-lift for a single model of its gasoline powered cars. Just a redesign, not even a start from scratch like the EV1 was. The only reason the average cost per EV1 was $1M is because of the exceptionally low volume of production. Simple amoratization.

Secondly, the speculation that the lease cost of the EV could be raised to make it a sustainable product is just nonsense, because there was no buy-out option on the 3-4 year lease (since they would need a total battery replacement to go longer, adding thousands to the cost of maintenance)

That bastion of tree-huggers, the Rand Corp, estimated that, in 2000, the cost to replace the nimh battery packs was up to $12K tops - probably a third less if the batteries could be produced in volume. Battery tech has only gotten cheaper and more efficient since then moving on to li-ons today. Since GM only permitted a 3 year lease, there were no real numbers for how long the batteries would last. But Toyota's Rav4EV with about the same size nimh batteries (27.5kWh vs the EV1's 26.5kWh) seem to consistently do better than 130K miles on the first set of batteries.

Couple that with reduced cost of maintence due to far less moving parts, no need for things like oil changes and the huge savings on fuel costs and that battery replacement is really a non-issue. Just hand-waving on GM's part.

So, saying that increasing the lease cost is impossible because GM won't do and has a ready-made but bogus excuse for it is the real nonsense.

There was another great little factoid about the EV-1 in that C/D editorial... they asked the engineers who developed it what the range would be on a winter day with cold batteries, using the heater and defroster. The answer? 12 miles. Yeah, what a livable, practical means of transportation...

That "factoid" is a great example of how the media lies by telling the truth. Sure, it was true. For the 1st generation lead-acid batteries (1996). The 2nd generation nimh batteries (1999) from Ovionic were not adversely affected by cold. A perfect example demonstrating my point that GM could get 3rd party improvements in battery tech for "free."

And I don't buy the contention that it makes sense for all of us to replace one of our cars with an EV which we can recharge using our home renewable energy supply. .........

You are absolutely right. As long as you restate the issue in exaggerated terms nobody is going to agree with it.

You seem to be getting a lot your information from a recent issue of C/D, as I was researching this response I came across a couple mentions of C/D's coverage of the EV1 and other electrics in the past. They were all complaints about and corrections for C/D's articles. I get the distinct impression that C/D has long had a bias against either the EV1 or EVs in general. You would do well to find some less biased sources.